Count Me In
by madwriter223
Summary: EDIT2: link fixed again, keep your fingers crossed. -Kink Meme Fill- Tony has been very busy lately. But he's not busy for now. So why wouldn't they come? AKA A busy Tony is a left out Tony . Angst, Angst, and once again Angst.
1. Count me in

**Count Me In**

Tony stared, not quite believing his eyes.

Life as Tony Stark is hectic and busy. StarkIndustries, the Avengers, SHIELD, fundraisers and other PR stuff, Tony barely had enough time to sleep. At the beginning, right after Loki's little invasion, he had had more time to spend with the team. Shawarma, movie nights, or just plain hanging out. But then New York finished rebuilding, and StarkIndustries lent the Arc-Reactor for the city's use, and Tony had to spend three weeks watching over it, rebuilding parts that weren't prepared for the strain of an entire city, monitoring energy output and the like. He had to turn the guys down, he honestly didn't have time to join them on that team-building trip or whatever. If it wasn't for Pepper shoving food down his throat between running diagnostics, he probably wouldn't even have eaten at all.

But then the public wanted to know more about his invention, so he'd had interviews, public appearances, spots on TV to explain how the Arc Reactor would manage to supply clean energy for another hundred years for the whole city. Then he had to field away idiots wanting to buy the design, he had to protect his baby from greedy hands and blood-thirsty warmongers. He had to rewire the damn thing so that the energy output couldn't be used for powering weapons or other death machines. And while he did that, he couldn't turn it off or the city would have his head, so he had to work around the open conduits and electrified wires.

Then he had to deal with fuel companies bitching at their drop in profit and he had that award from Green Peace and that trip to Great Britain to discuss making an Arc Reactor for them with the Queen, then Fury came bitching at him about a new Helicarrier and maybe some new tech for his Agents, and Tony barely even had time to breathe.

And during all that, the guys dropped by to invite him for this fun activity or that. A game of darts, a Star Wars marathon, paintball (who the hell came up with that idea he'd never know) or even eating dinner together. And Tony had to turn them down, he'd been too busy, maybe next time, but the next time never really happened because he had to say no again.

But finally, after months of working non-stop, Tony _finally_ had a day off. A day free of work, and he'd be able to spend some time with the other Avengers, do some science with Bruce, drink and laugh with Clint, tease the Cap and Thor with slang, Hell, even get a manicure with Natasha.

He'd gotten a good night's sleep, woke bright and early and waited for the invitation to join them in whatever they had planned for today. He had grinned to himself, imagining their faces when he'd say 'Sure, count me in.'

But they never came. He'd waited and waited, got bored and started working on the toaster, and waited some more. But they never came. But he'd believed they would eventually wander down or even send a message and he could say yes, finally he could say yes to their invitation.

Then his coffee run out. So he'd gotten up and gone to the kitchen to brew some more, maybe even make the guys some too. Then he could go and pester them for a change. Turnabout's fair play and all that.

But they were already there. Sitting in the living room, talking and laughing, the Lord of the Rings playing on the large plasma. They had snacks and drinks already and were sitting all cozy, next to each other and laughing. Laughing.

Today was movie night then. Without Tony.

And Tony wanted nothing more than to ask 'Hey, guys. What's going on?' Wanted nothing more than to just take a few steps more and grin at them, to join them.

But they hadn't invited him. The only day Tony could say yes, and they hadn't invited him. And they already looked so happy, laughing at inside jokes that Tony didn't understand.

Because Tony wasn't on the inside. He was on the outside, watching them have fun without him.

So Tony turned around on his heel and left. He went back down to his workshop, and grabbed the nearest bottle, draining half of it in one go. The alcohol burned going down, but it didn't help ease the tightness in Tony's chest.

Dummy clicked at him worriedly, nudging him gently and Tony smiled sadly, petting the metal arm. Dummy beeped then whirled away. He came back moments later with a soldering iron and the remains of the toaster, setting them down in front of Tony and waiting eagerly for instruction on how he could help.

Tony grinned at him through suddenly wet eyes. "Sure, buddy. Count me in."

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**AN: Written for Kink Meme prompt:**

_Takes places after the team moves in: So the Avengers have Friday movie nights, small parties, game nights, outings of various sorts (like trying to get Steve and Thor up-to-date on 2012/Midgar), ect. The whole team is invited. Thing is, Tony is busy with StarkIndustries, being a SHEILD consultant, suit repairs, this fundraiser, that function, PR nightmares, press conferences, or just catching up on sleep._

So Tony can't make it all the time. And eventually, he gets so busy that he just can't make it to any of the team-bonding things. It's not that he doesn't try, but something always comes up: someone fucking up a project at SI, SHEILD sending him some schematics that he has to look over ASAP, papers to sign, ect. He tells the team he's sorry that he can't make it, and the team understands and gives him his space to do his thing.

But they back off to the point where they just stop trying to invite Tony at all.

A few weeks go by like this: Tony being super busy and the team having fun without him. Tony kinda notices that no one has left him any messages on his phone, though he knows that there have been a few team-things that he's missed. A little sad, but whatever.

So he finally gets a day off. Tony's happy for some down time, and spends the day in his lab doing stuff and confident that his team will come bother him at some point if something fun is going on upstairs. Just because they haven't bother him recently doesn't mean they won't period, and plus it's his day off, so of course they'll come!

The day passes slowly, and Tony needs a refill on his coffee. He goes upstairs...and the team is in the living room, together, eating pizza and obviously having a movie marathon of some sort.

Without him. Even though he has finally gotten a day off, he has no obligations to be anywhere else, nothing to fix. They didn't bother coming to get him, or at least send him a message.

"Hey...what's going on, guys?"

All of the Tony!feels, please, and Guilty!Team as well!  
+1,000 if you manage to make it a 5things +1  
+10,000 if Tony walks out very visibly upset  
+My first born if the team tries to fix things


	2. Author's Note

Okay, so I got a lot of requests for continuing this, but I knew from the start that I wouldn't manage it. So I asked on the kink meme for some help, and two other authors filled in the comfort part.

The link is below. Just remove the spaces.

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EDIT: Okay, so the dotcom part of the link disappeared, that's why people were having problems with it. My bad.

Big thanks to the two people who sent me the correct link.

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EDIT 2: Okay, lets try this again. I may have found the problem. One character disappeared.

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avengerkink. livejournal (dotcom) /7293. html? thread**(equals sign)**13430397 #t13430397

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Here's praying it'll work, and sorry for all the trouble.

Someone please tell me how it works now.


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